Melinda's Song
by Dimples
Summary: After an unexpected demon attack takes the life of her newborn daughter, Piper fights to stay afloat in reality. How could she possibly move on, when she blames herself for her child's death? *CHAPTER 3 UP NOW*
1. Chapter 1

Title: Melinda's Song

Author: Dimples

Rating: PG-13, for violence, death, depressive tendencies, and a sexual innuendo

Summary: A demon attack changes the Halliwell's lives forever.

Archive: email me first @ chippie625@hotmail.com

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Don't sue me. 

*~*~*~*~*~*

I remember dark. It was night, late, or maybe early morning; I'm not sure which. The bed where I was sleeping was so warm against the cool air. It wasn't usually that cold on autumn nights in San Francisco, and so I snuggled closer to Leo under the heavy weight of the quilt that we had recovered from the attic. He sighed deeply and wrapped his bare arms around my shoulders and pulled my back up against his chest. I could feel our hearts beating together, in sync with one another as they had since the day we had first seen one another. I loved him so much, more than my own life, and I wanted more than anything to feel him inside me, but we both knew that it wasn't time yet. It hadn't even been six weeks since… since Melinda's birth, and the Elder's has refused to allow Leo to heal me. So we accepted the decision, and that night we laid in bed together, keeping each other warm with just the tender touch of skin to skin, wrapped up tightly, intertwined in a tangle of arms and legs that I felt would never unravel. I had prayed that we could freeze that moment and place it in a glass jar by the bed and keep it forever, so we could turn back to it and feel as we had at that second in time. I wanted to stop time and make all of the demon attacks that had become so frequent, almost twice a day, disappear so 'we' could just be 'us' again. Our perfect minute became a perfect hour, until at last it was interrupted. I heard Melinda cry, her powerful little lungs wailing for me to come and lull her back to sleep like I would fourteen thousand times every other night. But that night, enveloped in Leo's loving arms, I didn't want to get up and lose the moment. I sighed and waited, pausing as I enjoyed my last seconds of warmth before I rolled out of Leo's arms and stood, my bare feet tingling against the chilled wood floor. I yawned softly as I looked back and watched Leo spread out across the bed to keep both of our spots warm. 

"Hurry back…" he whispered into my flattened pillow, soaking up the smell of my shampoo on the fabric. 

I smiled and turned back to the cry, the beautiful, genuine cry of ultimate dependency that reminded me everyday that I was her mother, and she was my world. I imagined picking her up and singing a lullaby to her, the same song that my mother had sung to me, rocking her in my arms and feeling her chest rise and fall against my shoulder. I thought about Leo dancing with her in the middle of the night, when nothing else would soothe her tears but the piano concertos from the old 45 vinyls that we had pulled from the basement, along with the record player that Grams had loved so much. I drifted to the door, anticipating the instant gratification that I felt whenever I saw her face, and I placed my hand on the knob. I was turning it slowly, the copper cold in my palm, when the crying stopped abruptly, accompanied by a resounding 'crack'. 

I don't remember what I though as I pushed the door open and saw him standing there, his clawed fingers wrapped around her tiny throat. I don't remember what I said as I obliterated him into a million microscopic pieces that disintegrated before they fell to the floor. All I remember is the pain that ripped my mind, body, and soul apart from the inside when I saw her laying there. I was afraid to step closer, afraid to see the truth, afraid to admit to myself what was happening. I listened as the door slammed against the wall behind me, and Leo came in, panting and crying out, "What the hell was that?!" while I struggled to keep myself standing. He heard him shifting his gaze back and forth between the bassinet and the smoldering carpet, his head swimming. 

I let my trembling hand down slowly in to basket where I had laid my daughter to sleep not two hours before, and pulled back the pink, satin-trimmed blanket. Her small fingers still clasped the edge of the fabric loosely, and as I pulled it down, her arm moved, but the rest of her body remained motionless. My knees gave way beneath me as I saw her tiny form, still warm with life, sprawled on the rumpled sheets. All the blood drained from my face, and my heart stopped beating for a moment as I realized that all the fears that I had ever had were coming true. 

I lay on the floor, my head between my knees, and wept. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't see. My lungs had collapsed on themselves, and my eyes had deceived me, so I clamped them shut in an effort to make it all go away. It wasn't happening, I told myself. It's not real. But in my heart I knew that it was, and my stomach lurched. I vomited on the rug, projecting all my anger onto the floor, and I curled up in a ball next to the crib. The lights flickered on above my head, but I paid no notice as my sisters rushed into the cramped room. Leo fell to his knees on the ground where he stood as he, too, realized what was going on, and the faint gasps that he made were an indication that he wasn't breathing well either. Phoebe and Paige tried to make sense of things with what little they could see, and I wasn't surprised when they began sniffling in confusion. Leo's hand rested on my back, and tried to pull me toward him, but I shrugged it off violently, pulling away from him and myself at the same time. I didn't want to know what had happened, I didn't want to know how or why. I just wanted to hold her. To hold her and hear her breath in my ear, smell her hair and feel her weight in my arms. I remember reaching up and lifting her from the cradle, feeling for a sign of life in her as I pressed my ear to her chest. I'll never forget the way her tiny head rolled to one side on her tiny broken neck as I held her in my lap. I rocked back and forth on my knees, holding her head to my shoulder, calming her missing cries, soothing her absent tears. I imagined her sobbing into my shirt, gripped my ear like she always did, and the thought was so vivid that I could see, feel, hear everything, and I continued to rock her even after Phoebe and Paige, sobbing along with me, tried to pull her limp body from my grasp. Nothing they could have said would have convinced me to let her go. I just wasn't ready to admit the truth. 

My daughter was dead. 

TBC?


	2. Chapter 2

            We placed her next to Prue, in the vault that we had reserved for me, in the hopes that she might find her aunt up There… wherever There was. I hadn't wanted to go to the funeral, but Leo carried me out the door early that morning, his body stiff and cold toward me as though he didn't know me anymore. The truth was that I didn't know myself.

            It was a Saturday, late in September when the world isn't sure whether it should be sunny or snowing. That day it was neither, but instead it howled. The storm had blown in overnight, as though in anticipation of the burial. Nature's sick twisted way of saying, "I told you so". Perfect weather for a funeral, Grams used to say.

            _"Mother earth cries when one of her children dies…"_

It had been raining at my mother's funeral, I remember. One of the few true memories that I have of her, but it hadn't rained like this. Giant sheets of rain pelted the roof of the limo that someone had ordered, and the windows rattled in the heavy gale as it pounded us from all sides. I ignored it all, since every sound was drowned out by her cries, then the revolting 'crack'. Over and over, all day and all night. When I slept, I dreamt it; when I was awake, I remembered. It was a demon that I couldn't vanquish, a flood that I could escape. I had run out of tears days before, and so I lay down in the back of the limo, my head rested wearily on Leo's leg. His hand on my hair wasn't comforting, it wasn't my light at the end of this incredibly long tunnel. It was dead, silent, unresponsive as I gripped his pant leg. We hadn't spoken to each other since that night, and so we went on in silent agony. I knew that he blamed me, and I wasn't surprised by it. Even I blamed myself. If I hadn't waited those extra moments, if I had been more concerned with my child than with myself, maybe none of this would have happened. Maybe she would still be here. And maybe I wouldn't be burying my heart along with my daughter. 

            It took a week for me to figure out that things weren't going to get any better between Leo and I, so I left. I began spending nights in hotels around San Francisco, most of them closer to the manor than I might have liked. Every few days I would move on, selecting another motel next to a highway in the red light district, another five-star colossus close to the opera house. They all became to familiar, and I would start calling them 'home' subconsciously. I didn't want to feel that attachment anymore. 

            Leo never came looking for me when I disappeared for a week at a time, checking in once every so often to let my sisters know that I was still alive, and not dead in a ditch with a self-inflicted bullet lodged in my skull. Paige always managed to find me when I didn't come home after a few nights, and she'd attempt to drag me out of the musty, over-priced no-tell motels. She would orb in, find me lying on the bed, watching another after school special that Melinda would never get to see, and I could almost feel her heart wrench. It hurt me to see her look at me like that, but I couldn't help it. Nothing made sense to me. Not Leo, not my sisters, not my job, being a Charmed One, not life. It was all a haze, mixed together with some potent sleeping pills, which I couldn't find my way out of. She would tell me that being home would help, that she and Phoebe could help me forget. But how could I forget? I felt trapped inside my own body, lost in a sea of pain that raged like a hurricane, and I wanted more than anything to just evaporate away. 

            Many a night I prayed for death, prayed to be with my daughter, but death never came, and I was left alone to drown in guilt and self-pity. There is no remedy for a broken heart, and it eats away like a cancer at your soul, until you can't see, can't feel, can't breathe, and you cease to be. I felt like half of a person every second, without my husband, without my sisters, without my daughter… nothing would ever be the same, that much I knew. I never doubted that I wouldn't ever be free of the ache in my heart, but without my family to help ease the pain, I even less than nothing. The problem was that, even though I knew that I needed them, I forced myself to believe that I didn't. There would be no connections, no emotions, no feeling of love or hate. There would be nothing. No one could bring my daughter back, so I didn't need any of them. I would become heartless, cold anything to keep me from the pain. 

            Days at the hotels became weeks, and weeks turned into a month, then two. Paige continued to come, each time losing faith that I would ever recover. She had taken over P3 in my absence, and I could tell that the strain was getting to her. Her face was pale the last time she came, more pale than usual, and her once brilliant brown eyes were dull and murky as she wrapped her arms around me. 

            _"You're coming home."_

            A simple statement, and I was back in the manor, my head spinning as a landed abruptly on the floor of the kitchen. Phoebe looked up from her cup of herbal tea and blinked. I made my way out of the kitchen, but remained in the house. I had lost all the energy to run away, so I took up residence in the basement. I couldn't stay in my own room, since it was too close to… where it all happened. I wasted my days in a fitful sleep, and my nights sifting through all of the treasures that I had saved from my childhood for hers. Leo stopped coming to the manor once I returned, and I gave up hope of ever reconciling with him. I didn't think that it was beyond him to forgive me, I just knew that it was beyond myself to accept it. Whether or not her death could have been prevented was never the issue for me; it was my fault, end of story.

            My sisters continued their tirade to get me out of the basement, to get me to move on, but that usually only resulted in broken antiques and high tension, so they called a professional. Can you believe it? Me, the eldest, wisest… well, maybe not wisest… Charmed One, seeing a shrink? Phoebe brought the woman home with her late one night. I remember it was dark and I was just waking up from another nightmare. The door from the kitchen opened up slowly, shedding a beam of light onto my mattress, and the stout, black silhouette in the doorframe was joined by two others with more slender figures. She tried to walk down the stairs, but I froze her before she could make it an inch. I remember running away, blowing past my sisters before they had a chance to stop me, and before Paige was able to orb after me without being seen. I could hear Phoebe stop her as I rushed out the front door. 

            _"Let her go. There's nothing else we can do for her…"_

The winter air was more apparent then, and I could see my breath in clouds before my face as I sprinted down the side roads, until I reached Market Street, a little over a mile away. I stopped on a corner and looked around at the area, dirty and darkened, where fools are kings and queens are prostitutes in tight red dresses. I stopped running, stopped thinking, stopped hearing. I wandered up and down the bordello in a hazr, seeking answers to questions that no one was willing or able to answer. Even with the frost in the air, my shirt clung to my chest, drenched in a frightened sweat as I passed the pitch-black storefronts. Their blank neon signs gave me a second reassurance that they wouldn't open their doors for me to warm myself. Men in rusted cars honked at me as they drove by, propositioning things from me that I was not willing to give. The women in their dresses gave me pitiful looks as they saw me, and I knew that they felt more sorry for me than they did for themselves. I cried for them, for Melinda, for myself, as I sat down on a broken cardboard box by the side of the road. The people who sauntered passed pressed coins into my hand, shaking their heads at what they thought to be another hopeless drunk. 

            Hours out on the street left me cold, shivering, and numb, but I remained on the box, believing it to be my shelter. All the sounds had dimmed to a low hum, leaving me alone in my thoughts, all of which scared me more than the thought of being alone on a dark street corner. 

            _You don't deserve to live… you killed your child… your husband has abandoned you… you don't deserve to live…_

They spun around in dizzying circles, chanting my worst fears and wishes like assaults on my soul. I grabbed my head, squeezing my temples to force the thoughts from my mind, but the chanting grew louder, faster, harsher. I screamed and leapt to my feet, but then it stopped. It was as though time was standing still. There was no movement on the streets, no noise, no hum, no chanting. Just people frozen in place all around me, the last stragglers from the bars and the resilient red women who waited out all night for a score, motionless on the strip.  It was as thought I had frozen, albeit unwillingly, all of Market street.

            I heaved involuntarily, and raised my hands to unfreeze the masses, when I heard a sound. It was soft, melodic, as it floated over the petrified avenue, and I stayed my hand as I listened. It was a piano; its chords ringing perfectly while its ivory keys clinked against the thinly grained wood. I had heard the song before… Mozart's Piano Concerto number 23, in A minor. Mel's favorite. The only song that could ever put her sleep. 

            My feet were moving faster than my mind, and I blinked, and I was in front of a tiny shop. The lights burned dimly, but enough to illuminate the aged, dilapidated Steinway piano in the front window. A young girl, maybe fourteen or fifteen at the most, sat at the splintering bench, her long, slender fingers massaging the dirty keys as though she was playing before a packed house at Carnegie Hall. She didn't even look at the sheet of music in front of as she drummed away, but kept her eyes closed as she listened to herself and imagined the stage and the crowd.

            I stood at the window and watched, entranced with the beauty of the song that I hadn't heard in months, and the young woman who looked so familiar. Her long, dark brown hair, which cascaded down her shoulders, had a subtle curl at the ends, and it flipped out around her elbows while she played. With her eyes closed it was hard to place her face with a name, but there was something about her that drew me closer to the glass. Without realizing it, I pressed my hand against the cool, clear surface, my breath leaving a gray cloud on the window. She must have felt my presence, since she stopped suddenly and froze on the bench. She turned her head slowly, exposing her eyes to me as she did. They were large, bright, and identical to my own. For a moment they were harsh, angry that I had interrupted her concerto, but when she looked at me, deeply, as though she knew me, she became afraid. I saw her mouth form a small 'O' as her once limber hands trembled while she wiped them on her smock that revealed her to be a store employee. She turned to run into the bowels of the store, but as she did, I caught a glimpse of the white lettering on her blue plastic nametag. 

            Melinda.


	3. Chapter 3

My heart raced in my chest, but I was too stunned to move. It took everything in me to push myself away from the window and shove the heavy wooden door to the little shop open. Inside it was musty, damp, and dark, and I could see cobwebs in the corners of the room that hadn't been touched in years. She had turned off the lights in an effort to hide herself from me, but I knew that she was still there; there was no other way out except through the front door.  
  
I fumbled around in the dark, tripping over various antiquities that were strewn about the floor. Tiny iron baby cradles and little wooden rocking horses caught my eye, and I swallowed back the lump that was choking me. A gold plated tuba with water stains marring its embossed surface jumped out in front of me while my attention was turned away from the ground before me, and I fell, landing hard on my hands and knees. For a moment I didn't move. The rough, gritty cement and tile floor scratched my palms and it stung, and I forgot what I was searching for for a second. But as I lifted my head, my neck creaking softly, I locked eyes with her, and it all flooded back into my memory.  
  
She crouched in the shadows, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees as she gnawed on her wrist. I could see the reflection of the crescent moon in her dark irises; I could see myself. The smock that fell loosely around her thin shoulders covered an off-white dress that was fraying at the edges, but still made her look more like an angel than a human being. Her hands were soft, the skin dusted with blonde hair that made her glow even more brightly than she had in the window. She didn't move, just blinked back her fear and continued to gnaw. We remained in that position for what seemed like an hour, her squatting near the ground, the hem of her skirt trailing in the dust, and I on my hands and knees, watching her. Then she lifted her chin for a brief moment, and I heard her tiny voice.  
  
"They told me that you'd come," she whispered, and then returned to devouring her arm.  
  
My breath caught in my throat, and I nearly choked on my words before they could escape past my lips. "Wh-Who.?" I pulled my legs underneath me and sat down on the dusty floor, scooting closer to her. She was so frightened, and all I wanted to do was hold her, dry her tears, tell her that everything would be okay. I wanted to be a mother to her, to show her all the love that I had never been able to give my child, and I didn't even know who she was.  
  
"Them," came her weak reply, as she nodded toward the ceiling. "Up there. The Elders." Her shoulders relaxed slightly, and she allowed herself to sit down with me. The tears began to well up in my eyes as the million tiny puzzle pieces fell into place, and her slender body leaned up against my own. "They told me you'd come, but they never told me how beautiful you were."  
  
I wasn't sure how, or why, but my baby had come back to me. For the longest time I had felt an empty hole where heart had been, but it returned to me, and I could feel it bursting from my chest. I wrapped my arms around my grown daughter and held her tightly, as though I wanted to make sure that it wasn't all a dream, that she was really sitting there with me, in the dark, in the dust. She didn't fight me, she didn't even wince as I squeezed her, and cried into her chestnut hair. All she did was return my death grip, her arms around my waist and her head rested in my lap, whispering her misplaced apologies.  
  
"I'm sorry.please, I'm so sorry."  
  
I didn't know what to say. There were no words left inside me to describe how I felt. It was as though the past month and a half had been erased and filled again to overflowing by these five minutes in a darkened antique shop.  
  
"Shh. baby, no. Don't be sorry. not ever. I love you so much." I could feel her heart pounding against my side, loud and rhythmic, and I knew that this was real. There was no cosmic vision, no midnight hallucination that would evaporate and pull me back into my miserable reality; this was reality. My daughter, however grown, wrapped in my arms as though we had never been apart.  
  
"Mom." her voice was unsteady, tasting the bittersweet word as she murmured it. "Mom. I don't ever want to leave you." Her grip loosened and she crawled into my lap as though she was still small enough to do so, like she was four years old and ready for a nap. Her head leaned against my shoulder, and she closed her eyes.  
  
"You'll never leave me again, I swear it," I trembled with the words, fumbling for a comforting answer to her heartfelt plea. "Nothing will ever pull us apart. You're not going anywhere, I promise."  
  
I felt her fingers dig into my arm. "If only that were true."  
  
My heart collapsed into my stomach, and I feel the acid rising in the back of my throat. I fought back the wave of nausea and lifted her chin to look in her eyes. They were so perfect, two identical dark pools of innocence that told so many stories which I could never decipher, but filled with a pain that I knew she didn't understand. I knew it all too well. "You won't leave. I can't lose you again. We'll figure something out."  
  
Melinda shook her head in dismay. "No, I can't. I can't. They told me that you needed help, and that I was the only one who could help you."  
  
It wasn't fear that gripped my heart; not pain, not sorrow, but anger. They, the Elders, had interfered again, sent my daughter back to me only so they could pull her back right when I thought that I would never lose her. They ruled over our lives like some sort of demi-gods, but they weren't my gods, and I would not pay them homage like a peasant before a golden calf. My insides burned with rage and I wanted to lash out, kick something, punch in a wall, but she was holding me so tightly. It was apparent that she didn't want to leave any more than I wanted her to. "They can't take you away. I won't let them. It's not fair, sending you here and then ripping you away. I'm sick of all this tug-of-war with higher powers; the witch always loses. I'm better off dead than living without you."  
  
There was a pause, and she squeezed me. "I know why they sent me now, Mom. I know why I agreed to come." Melinda let go of my torso and sat up straight, then looked directly at me, unblinking. She was different in every other way, but her eyes still held the wonder and curiosity of the newborn that I had held in my arms just a short time before. She was calm as she spoke, choosing her words wisely. "I don't remember growing up, with the Elders. I don't remember being five or eight or eleven. I just was. I do remember, however, being alive. I remember being with you, in your arms, and feeling so warm, so safe. I remember the song you sang me, the one that your mother sang to you, and the song that you played me every night to rock me to sleep. The same song that I played to help you find your way here.I was only with you a short time, but it was our time. I can't let you live like this, hiding from a life that you created because of me. You're not remembering the things we did, the few precious things that made me yours, and you mine. Until you remember them, until you can hold them in your memory and in your heart, you won't be able to do anything for me or yourself. It will only get worse, Mom. Please, don't let it get any worse than this."  
  
Her words picked away at me, pulling me to a place that I hadn't wanted to go. I could feel the wall around me crumbling, cracks forming in its once solid surface. If I let it fall, if I stopped hiding form the world as she asked, then she would leave, and again I would be alone. Without her, without Leo, without myself. I wasn't going to let that happen.  
  
"I can't do it," I muttered into my hands. "I won't just let it all disappear, as though it never happened. Because it did happen, dammit, and there's nothing that will ever let me forget that my child was taken form me. You can't ask me to. It's too much."  
  
"No one's asking you to let it all disappear."  
  
The voice behind me was rough and smooth, calm and frightened all at the same time. I didn't have to turn around in order to know who it was. "Leo."  
  
Melinda lifted her fragile head and looked up at her father with adoration. "Hi, Daddy." I turned then and saw him, his clothes looking just as unkempt and disheveled as mine. His eyes were dusky, his face pale, and lines were beginning to etch themselves into his strong forehead.  
  
"Hey, sweetie," he said, forcing a smile. His eyes gave away his true feelings, and I could see tears glistening in their corners. He stared at her lovingly, like any adoring father would, and rested a hand on my shoulder. Despite my fear that he might still blame me, my entire body relaxed at his touch. I felt his fingers through my shirt, not digging in, but pressing in a reassuring way, as though he wanted me to know that he was there, and he wanted to feel me there for him in return.  
  
"Leo, I-"  
  
"Don't," he squeezed my shoulder gently without reproach, but never took his eyes off of our daughter. "Let her finish. You need to hear this."  
  
I closed my mouth and looked back at Melinda. She was crying, the salty streams trickling over her porcelain cheek, but she didn't flinch. Her face was calm as the tears flowed, and her hands were still as they rested on top of mine.  
  
"It wasn't your fault," she continued, her thin fingers wrapping themselves like vines around my wrists. "I know that, Daddy knows that. The only person who doesn't is you."  
  
I cringed, my teeth grating together so loudly that I thought my molars woild spring from my gums. "But if I hadn't taken my time, if I had just gotten up when I heard you the first time, maybe you'd-"  
  
"It wouldn't have made a difference," she cut me off with a sigh. "Fate never meant for me to be with you that long. I know that now. It was an unintentional lesson, a test of your strength, your courage, and most of all, your love." Melinda glanced up at her father and took his free hand. He knelt down beside me, and could feel the warmth radiating from his body. He leaned against my shoulder, his hand still on my arm, and knew that he didn't blame me anymore. Maybe at first, but there was something about his face that told me that he knew something I didn't. He knew what had been planned, what had been foreseen for us and our child was out of our control. He knew that she had to go, even though he loved her so much.  
  
"It wasn't my fault," I repeated slowly, rolling the words around in my mouth.  
  
She shook her head. "No."  
  
"It was a lesson. A test." The realization that I had been puppet once again in Their twisted little show filled my thoughts. A puppet with knotted strings.  
  
"Don't look at it like that," Leo pleaded. I could almost hear his twisting the same idea around in his head, and I knew that he hated it just as much, if not more, than I did. The Elders had destroyed our lives one time too many. "They never meant for it to be this way. If they had known that she was going to. you know, so soon, they wouldn't have sent her to us at all. It was an accident, a terrible mistake in the readings of the Old Books. Don't turn your back on them, on your calling, because of this, because you hate them. Let us help you. Let me help you." I buried my face in my palms and refused to look up. My head pounded in time with my racing heart, and I could feel the blood rushing to my temples. A surge of emotions filled me until there was nothing in my head but a mixture of feelings that blinded me and shoved all rational thought from my mind. It was as though someone had broken a dam inside of me, allowing everything that I had kept hidden, everything that I had suppressed, to flow free in full force, until there was nothing left of me but an empty shell. I had nothing inside to give them, nothing to tell them or show them that I knew I needed help. So I remained there, my head in my hands, and cried. 


End file.
